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Tesla’s tumultuous quarter ended with some pretty good sales figures.
The company delivered 83,500 vehicles during the third quarter, a strong performance that should calm investors’ fears about logistics problems and a looming cash crunch. This included about 56,000 of the lower-priced Model 3.
Production was slightly less than that number: Tesla said it built about 53,000 Model 3s. But this was within the company’s estimates.
Just three months ago, the company struggled to make 5,000 Model 3s a week, a long-delayed goal. Tesla didn’t maintain that pace, but production was still high enough that the company remained on track to make a sustained profit for the first time.
Tesla was in desperate need of good news.
In August, CEO Elon Musk proposed a plan to take the company private, then dropped it. The SEC sued Musk last week, claiming he defrauded investors by claiming in a tweet that he had secured financing to go private.
On Saturday, the second to last day of the quarter, Musk reached an agreement with the SEC to pay a $20 million fine and step down as Tesla chairman. He will remain CEO, news that came as a relief to Wall Street on Monday.
Executives have also left the company in recent months, including the chief accounting officer, who left after less than a month on the job.
Tesla (TSLA) stock closed down nearly 3% after the production and sales report.
Tesla will release revenue and profit figures at the end of the quarter. The report does not provide details on where these figures will come from. It said all Model 3 sold at the end of the quarter were the more expensive all-wheel-drive models, powered by dual electric motors.
Musk also sent an email to all Tesla employees over the weekend saying the company is close to its goal of becoming profitable.
“We are very close to achieving profitability and proving the naysayers wrong, but of course, we have to perform really well tomorrow (Sunday),” he wrote, referring to the last day of the quarter. “If we try our best tomorrow we will achieve a great victory beyond all expectations.”
The company has posted modest profits in only two quarters in its 10-year history. It has reported losses totaling $6 billion during that period.
Tesla has $1.2 billion of debt maturing within the next six months, which has led some analysts to project that the company will need to sell additional shares or debt to raise cash.
Musk has said the revenue from the sale will provide Tesla with the cash it needs. But he has also admitted that the company is facing problems in the delivery of its cars. This increased investors’ concerns regarding cash crunch.
Musk tweeted two weeks ago to a customer who asked when the promised car would be delivered, “Sorry, we’ve gone from production hell to delivery logistics hell.” “This problem is much more solvable,” he said. “We are making rapid progress.”
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